


During Wartime

by Querulousgawks



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Homesickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 14:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6707467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Put it in a report, somewhere. Fully trained, five years past minimum combat age, FN-2107 lies awake in troop quarters and longs for the sanitation tunnels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	During Wartime

Put it in a report, somewhere. Fully trained, five years past minimum combat age, FN-2107 lies awake in troop quarters and longs for the sanitation tunnels.

_Signs of imbalance. Instability. A need for correction._

It's stupid. He doesn't remember crying after he was kidnapped, too young to even know his name. He knows he didn't cry when they branded him - he'd been drugged to the gills of a respirator he hadn't yet earned the right to wear. (Unnecessary pain was against order policy. Wasteful.) But the day after his too-wide shoulders catch and dislodge a monitoring probe in the tunnels - the day Phasma risks her shining uniform to recruit him from the sanitation chief, eyeing his new breadth with a closeness that crawls all over his skin- _then_ he cries, like he’s being taken all over again. And the tears stay, banked just beneath visibility but ready to overflow at the most humiliating moments.

 _We come from nowhere!_ They shout in perfect unison at the end of drills, in formation before meals, for the sickly white general at troop reviews. _We are born in the order!_ He shouts it louder after his sleepless night, trying to make the noise fill the hollow in his chest. _We are one in the order! We have no name!_

"Homesick for shitsville," his new squad leader marvels, disgust mixed with genuine surprise. "The recruits get weirder every year. Three-kay, he's got your designation - you deal with him."

"C'mon, Two-one," FN-3000 tries, leaning in to where he is hunched over, trying to breathe steadily over the uneven waves of tears. "Sanitation's a dead end, you don't even get contraband. This is basically a rescue. And we'll train you, and be good to you, and -" she visibly casts around for something comforting to say. "And we'll airlock you if you don't cheer the fuck up, all right?" 

"Who gives a newbie to _Threek?_ " Someone asks in a carrying whisper, and she throws her hands up. But then -

FN-2107 makes a new sound, a little huff that not quite as miserable as the ones that preceded it. That almost sounds - amused. "You're not ranked for an airlock code," he mutters, and meets her eyes with his wet ones clear and sharp. "And if someone hears you shorten a designation, we all get spaced."

Her grin is like a jump across the methane intake, a placid invitation lit up with warnings. For the first time since he was called up from the tunnels, since he realized it wasn't some prank or bureaucratic mistake, he sees - an individual face. Not the blank professional gaze of the bursar, or the troop leaders’ baring of teeth, not the dim oval of Hux on the podium or the mirrored gleam of Phasma’s helmet, but one smile, meant specifically for him. A smile that he wants to return. 

He doesn’t, obviously. No way he’s going come off as that easily manipulated. But she must see something encouraging in his face.

"You're gonna be _fine,"_ she says, and when she reaches up to clap a hand to his traitorous shoulder, he doesn’t shrug it away. 


End file.
